


Drumming to the Beat of the Stars

by kitkatt0430



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Cisco re-evaluating his opinion on HR, Gen, HR would have fought in the Earth-19 war, Past Brain Injury, Past Injury, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, The War on Earth-19, late night discussions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:26:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28412370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitkatt0430/pseuds/kitkatt0430
Summary: HR Wells is a fraud and that's all there is to him... right?
Relationships: Cisco Ramon & Earth-19 Harrison "HR" Wells
Comments: 3
Kudos: 22





	Drumming to the Beat of the Stars

HR Wells is a fraud. Not a scientist like he'd claimed, but an ideas man. And for whatever reason, they've decided to keep him anyway.

If he's being perfectly honest, Cisco would rather throw the guy back to Earth-19 and ask Harry to just time share between the two Earths. Sure, HR's ideas had been useful, but not... not what Cisco had been looking for. He'd wanted another Harry, which was clearly impossible. Every version of Harrison Wells was as unique as every star in the sky. 

At least they didn't have the mime. That was still massively disturbing.

Anyway, HR had disappeared again, likely to work on his latest novel, and Cisco took that as his chance to head up to the roof of STAR Labs. He had a telescope set up that he wanted to use tonight - not to stargaze anything in particular but because he was stressed and needed the break.

Which makes it all the more frustrating when he arrives on the roof to find HR not only up there but fiddling with Cisco's telescope. He considers, very seriously, just turning around and leaving, but HR has seen him now so it's pretty much too late.

"San Francisco!" HR sings out cheerfully. "Come join me. I'm watching Venus. Pollution on Earth-19 is so bad that I haven't been able to watch her in the heavens since the early nineties."

Everything HR has to say about Earth-19 makes Cisco suspect it's a bit of a post-apocalyptic dystopia type place, which contributes to why he hasn't pushed very hard on sending HR back. If it's really so awful there, then HR should stay... no matter how irritating he is.

"We should take the telescope out to Ferris Aire one weekend, then," Cisco offers. "The light pollution isn't so bad there and you can see the whole Milky Way."

HR's face lit up. "I would love that." He gestured for Cisco to take a turn gazing through the telescope.

Looking through, Cisco watches Venus for a little while. The planet really was lovely to see. "Do you stargaze a lot?" Cisco asked, pulling away and giving HR another look.

"Not really. Not anymore, anyway. Not since the war." HR's voice goes a little flat when he mentions the war. "The atmospheric pollution made it too difficult without an industrial grade telescope and... I spent enough time behind a different sort of scope that I couldn't really..." HR moved away from the telescope and sat down beside it instead, gazing up at the sky. Quiet for a long moment. "I was a sniper in the war. And a damn good one. Took me a long time afterwards to be able to look through anything remotely resembling a gun scope without having flashbacks." Absently he pulled out his drumsticks, twirling one of them around between his fingers, passing it back and forth from hand to hand with practiced ease.

HR was a soldier... a sniper. A veteran. Cisco felt a bit stunned by that revelation. He'd have never guessed... HR just seemed so carefree. So different from Harry, who was also a former soldier and field sniper. It wasn't something Cisco would have ever thought the two Harrison Wells would have in common.

Cisco settled down beside HR. "You okay?"

HR shrugged and smiled... but Cisco thought he could see the edges of the mask that smile really represented this time.

"On my Earth, today is a national holiday. Armistice Day. The day the war ended. Not that it stopped the fighting from continuing for another two months, but... officially, today's the day." HR's smile slipped, his gaze distant. "I love holidays. Just wait until Yuletide, I am the best decorator. Or... I suppose it's Christmas that's the big deal here."

To the point of being insulting to other religions and erasing the actual Season of Advent by focusing solely on Christmas Day, but... "yeah. Christmas is a pretty big deal. I'll have to show you where we keep the lab decorations."

HR brightened. "Are there any fake trees?"

"Blue ones. Lots of silver tinsel too - STAR Labs colors. We haven't really gone all out since the accelerator blew up on us, but... it'd be nice to go a little crazy with it this year," Cisco said, settling down beside HR. He paused a beat, then said, "I take it you don't much like Armistice Day?"

"Not really. There's usually parades and... it's a big deal. And I hate it." HR shrugged. "This morning I woke up and didn't even realize what day it was until halfway through the afternoon. It was wonderful."

Cisco wrapped his arms around his knees. Not really sure what to say.

"I was a scientist once," HR said quietly. "PhDs in Physics and Applied Mathematics. Randolf and I were going to open STAR Labs as equal partners. But then winter ninety-two... Randolf was recruited by the government to create experimental weaponry. I thought that's what they wanted with me too, but the next thing I know they're putting a gun in my hands instead. And then two days after the Armistice agreement was signed..." HR ran his hands through his hair, exposing - for a moment - the edge of a pale scar peeking out from below his hairline. "I was shot. Woke up a few weeks later and Randolf was there. I thought he was playing a prank at first. He used to be the fun one, after all. Everything he said sounded like nonsense. But then the nurses and the doctor... it was all the same."

"Aphasia," Cisco filled in. It was a common side effect of brain injuries and coma patients - they'd been concerned Barry might suffer from some form of it when he'd been brought to the lab after the lightning strike.

"Yup. It sucked. Everything was different and wrong even when I could understand what they were saying again. Randolf was withdrawn... it was like the spark had gone out of him entirely. He didn't want to start up STAR Labs with me anymore. And then it turned out... I don't know if it was the trauma from the war or from being shot or... I tried to do science and it was all gibberish. Like all my years at school leaked right out of my head." HR twirled his drumsticks again. "I thought about going into music. Picked up a drum set. But all the music I tried to write was anti-war and anti-government and would have gotten me into a ton of trouble. So I convinced Randolf to rethink STAR Labs. He'd handle the science and I'd handle the business and we wouldn't deal with anything we had moral problems with. But after what he went through during the war, Randolf couldn't stand the idea of being in the public spot light at all. It was his idea to have me publicly take credit for his work. So I put together my PR mask and... started writing novels. Those, at least, were all mine. And for nearly twenty years it worked. Our accelerator currently powers two provinces... his accelerator powers two provinces..."

"So what went wrong?"

"Disgruntled former employee broke his confidentiality agreement. And Randolf got tired of my taking credit for his work. But instead of telling me, he just..." HR drummed the air in what looked like a classic 'ba-dum tis'. "So that's the Wells you're stuck with. Can't do science because my brain is broken and, after twenty years of pretending to be someone I'm not, I don't really know who I am any more."

"Your brain isn't broken," Cisco insisted automatically. "Dude, just... don't, okay? Your friend sucks, by the way."

HR let out a startled little noise. "Randolf wasn't..." he heaved a sigh. "He sent me to another Earth so he wouldn't have to deal with me anymore. Didn't he?"

Cisco made an expressive shrug, not wanting to admit he'd thought that himself. "So you need to figure out who you are and we do need your ideas. In fact, we need your ideas when it comes to the business side of STAR Labs, if that's something you're comfortable doing. We don't need you to be a scientist or pretend to be one, but none of us know the first thing about the business side of things and we've got a number of inventions that we have no idea how to market to other companies, 'cause presumably we want some other company dealing with production and the like."

"I am good at it," HR allowed. "And I actually kind of liked the business side of things. What do you think about museums?"

"They always over price the gift shop, presumably because they have to under price the tickets to get people to show up. And I've got way too many novelty mugs as a result," Cisco said with a grin. "Help me get my Weather Wand sold to climate researchers and I will help you build a museum. What kind of museum are you thinking of anyway?"

"Not sure yet. I just really like the idea of running a museum." HR twirled his drumsticks and grinned. "Something related to STAR Labs. So what does this Weather Wand do?"

"Well, it's based off the meta abilities of Weather Wizard... better known as Mark Mardon. It can manipulate the atmosphere to artificially induce pretty much whatever weather you want. It could be used by the entertainment industry to create better indoor parks - indoor skiing, indoor beaches, that sort of thing. But I think that if the technology were to be iterated on then it could be used to fix the hole in our ozone layer. But I don't have the time to do that research myself and it's not really my field of study anyway. It's all patented, so if the tech starts getting used then STAR Labs gets paid for it."

"But none of you know how to deal with the marketing side of things," HR filled in. 

"And I also have concerns about the tech being used for more nefarious purposes. I know of at least one General in the Army who'd totally try and turn it into a typhoon-generator or a instant hurricane-maker."

HR grimaced. "Sounds like a jerk."

"Tell me about it." Cisco groaned and leaned back, gazing up at the sparse stars in the sky. The view from Ferris Air really was a lot better. And Cisco was getting better at intra-dimensional breaches... "You know what? Let's just go to Ferris Air now," Cisco stood up and offered HR a hand up. "Help me with the telescope?"

"Sure." HR beamed and scrambled to his feet.

Opening a breach, Cisco held it open for HR to take the telescope through before following after. On the other side, Cisco was a little dizzy, but as long as he waited for a little while before breaching them back he'd be fine. And he had his phone and wallet on him, so he could always call them an uber if necessary. He nearly stumbled into HR, who was staring up at the sky in awe.

"I forgot how beautiful..." HR muttered, strangely still as he gazed upwards. 

Cisco took the telescope from HR and began to set it up, letting the other man just stand there and drink the sight in.

"That Weather Wand of yours could probably help my world so much," HR finally said. "Only, they'd never accept it because it comes from another universe. But just getting to see the sky looking like this again... thank you."

Clapping a hand on HR's shoulder, Cisco gestured to the telescope. "Want to see if we can find another galaxy? I think we should be able to see Andromeda with this thing."

HR beamed and rocked on his heels. "Let's do this."

As Cisco looked for the North Star first, since that was basically step one to find the Andromeda galaxy, he mused that maybe HR would be back to being chirpy and annoying in the morning and Cisco would still be irritated with him for lying to them first, but...

His heart was in the right place. And maybe Cisco could do with being a little less of a jerk to him. If HR hadn't shown up in the middle of Cisco's grief and ongoing issues with Barry... he'd probably wouldn't have been so hard on the guy. HR might not have been what Cisco had been expecting... but maybe he was exactly what they needed after all.


End file.
